The Department of Health will meet with the Departments of Finance as well as the Department of Budget and Management to discuss the funding of the special risk allowance of healthcare workers for the year 2022, DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III said Wednesday.
Duque admitted there was only a small source of funds for the SRAs of medical frontliners in 2021.
He said that for 2022, the DOH was asking for at least P50 billion to fund the SRAs of healthcare workers.
“We’re looking at better revenue generation and more efficient collection and hopefully, what we have fought for on behalf of our healthcare workers is a P50 billion allowances for this year but since I have mentioned, about P7.8 or P7.9 billion was in the programmed funds in the GAA for 2022 that will only last no more than two months worth of allowances…” Duque said at a Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum.
“That’s why we are meeting with DOF and DBM [today, Thursday] to source the remaining balance of about P43 billion so that we can give our entire healthcare workers,” he said.
Duque also admitted that some of the SRAs and benefits of healthcare workers in the previous year were not yet completely given to them.
“There’s still a balance in the meals, accommodation, and transportation and when we identify savings, we put them together and continue to provide them but we really lacked funds so I have to admit, some were not yet given,” Duque said.
Meanwhile, Senator Joel Villanueva said the government should immediately “release and disperse” the P7.92 billion fund in the 2022 national budget for the government’s COVID-19 Laboratory Network so the current surge in the demand for testing could be met.
Villanueva said the amount should be “downloaded without delay” to public health facilities so they could cope with the spike in testing requests amid the explosion of omicron cases.
To be able to do this, public hospitals and clinics need to buy and stock up on testing kits and laboratory commodities, Villanueva explained.
The testing fund should be treated like vaccines, he said. “It’s like vaccines, which should be distributed immediately. “
“It should be wrapped with ‘Do not delay’ markings,” said Villanueva, chairman of the Senate labor committee Villanueva warned that delaying the release of the P7.92-billion fund lodged with the Department of Health “would be a case of underspending that leads to undertesting, which then leads to undercounting of cases.”